Carla: NaNoWriMo

Day 4: I am reading Joyce Carol Oates’ collection of essays and reviews of others’ work, In Rough Country, taken on when her husband was sick, completed when he died. The prelude essay explains how the work and other people’s words saved her, how in the quiet of night with books she was herself, in the daytime of phone calls and people and decisions, she was his widow. Her words resonated with me; her bedroom sounded like mine, in the first days, weeks, and months of being disabled, of being unwillingly homebound, of not knowing what the word “next” meant, or “me”, or “myself”, or “vocation”…

I messaged her and thanked her last night on Twitter, and she retweeted both of my messages.

The grande dame of American letters, probably the most talented and intelligent female writers alive today…in our 21st century quirky modes of communication, I told her I recognized my heart in her words, and she said the same.